How to Know if Your Child is Ready for Their First Phone
We are big on family dinners. They offer great opportunities for genuine conversations.
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Everyone that is home in the evening must sit at the table, no electronics.
Ready for Their First Phone
We talk about everything from our daily ups and downs, to future plans, and important family matters.
Once a week we even go around the table and ask for everyone’s Sinkholes, Mole Hills, and Grand Canyons. It’s a great way for us to keep up with how/what everyone is doing.
In addition to life in general, we also openly discuss important family matters.
For example, we talk about smartphone etiquette and rules because we don’t allow phones at the dinner table. With the phone comes responsibility.
Even deciding when to give them a phone was based on several factors on a one-by-one basis.
It was a dinnertime conversation that lasted over a couple of weeks. It’s definitely not a decision made in haste.
There are many factors that come into play when deciding if a child is ready for their first phone, such as:
- Are they going to spend any time alone?
- Do they ever need to walk home?
- Will they be going places where they’ll be expecting a ride home from one of us?
- Are they mature enough to handle the responsibility?
- Are WE ready to handle the new responsibility as parents?
These days our kids are busy and often go from place to place, not always with us. I want to be able to reach them, and more importantly, look up their location to know where they are.
Honestly, my number reason for making this sort of decision is always going to be safety first.
Plus, especially since our kids have grown up under the public eye for most of their childhood through our blogs, it’s incredibly important to us that they learn how to navigate a mobile and digital world both expertly and responsibly.
Therefore, we’re grateful Verizon has a plan that is just for kids with parental controls already built in so I can focus on PARENTING.
The Just Kids plan includes:
- 5 GB of 4G LTE data (QCi 9) with auto Safety Mode
- Smart Family Premium
- Unlimited talk & text to 20 contacts
As parents, you can choose their contacts, control what they see on their device, track their device’s location, limit data usage, and more using the My Verizon and My Verizon Smart Family apps.
Simply pair your device(s) with your child’s device using the Smart Family companion app and you’re ready to get started.
What are your deciding factors when it comes to a phone for your child?
Learn more about the Just Kids Plan here or stop by any of their stores for more information.